


Hang On Me

by nerdrumple



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Accidental Voyeurism, F/M, Masturbation, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, these tags make a strange combo but i promise everything is fine
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-15
Updated: 2019-02-15
Packaged: 2019-10-28 18:53:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17792846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nerdrumple/pseuds/nerdrumple
Summary: He didn’t feel sadness, he didn’t feel despair - he didn’t feel anything, that was the problem. But on the night Mr. Gold seeks to put an end to the nothing, he sees something that finally, finally, makes him feel.





	Hang On Me

Through the window, he saw her.

Big glass open window, thick sturdy rope in his hands. The night was black and rainy and loud so he could accomplish his task in cover and peace. Alone in the clocktower, a simple agenda before him: 1) Hang the rope, 2) Hang himself. Easy enough. If the clock rang out, it would mix with other loud, stormy sounds, and if his body made a _thud_ or _thack_ or _swish_ or any other noise, well, that could be the storm too. Or the clock! And he could carry on his swinging without anybody bothering him.

But if she turned her head now, she’d see him, seeing her.

Height was supposed to guarantee absence. No other building was as tall as the clocktower, nothing else was eye level. But her apartment, above the library, damn, he’d forgotten about that. Still below him, but not far enough. If she looked up, just now, just right, she’d see Mr. Gold in the clocktower, standing on a chair, tossing a rope over a rafter and tugging for proper tension. If she looked just now, she might stop, and panic, and call someone, and put a ruin to his midnight exorcism.

But she didn’t look. He was the one looking. Her body, pale and moving, singled out by the black of her bed sheets, or whatever color they were. It all appeared black against her skin, in the night. The sheets, the pillows, the floor, nightstands. Her body hovering in darkness, her legs slightly parted, her hands on her chest. Squeezing her breasts, kneading, then down to her stomach - up and down again, up, down, up. Down, down past her belly, into the thatch of her hair, into herself. His mouth parted at the sight, and he said something even his own ears couldn’t hear.

When her hands moved up again, he felt the movement, hands suddenly appearing at his own feet, moving up his calves, thighs - over his groin, making him swell, the feeling, it was astonishing! A thousand hands it felt like, all of them tipped in her same dark nail polish, suddenly up and over his chest and his throat, oh! Hands pushing his head back, ruffling his hair, making him look up until he was blinking at the ceiling, at his rope. He groaned, aching, and the hands moved back down again.

Belle French. Librarian. 20-something? 30-something? Father was the florist, yes, made monthly rent payments to Gold, but she didn’t. Belle French. Always at town meeting functions, always greeting him with a shy smile, like she was embarrassed all the time. She’d recommended a book to him last week, something that still lay on his entry table at home. Once he was done hanging himself and swinging dead back and forth, someone would have to return it to her, now wouldn’t they?

She’d invited him to sit with her at the diner, once. It was packed - he’d stepped in only to plan on walking right back out again. But she had smiled that embarrassed smile, and waved a hand at the seat across from her in invitation. And he’d sat down. She’d read her book and ate her food and he sat across from her in silence, only speaking when her occasional questions prompted his one word responses. She had touched her elbow in such a way, that day, and then her throat, fiddling with her necklace.

Her mouth was open in a small o now, Belle French. Her hand grasping at her throat, rough and tugging. The rope felt too thick in his hands, suddenly, too scratchy, too stiff. A tingle had started in his chest, his testicles - they drew up as he sucked in breath at the sight of Belle, naked and alone and touching herself in her apartment.

If she looked now, she’d stop him. If she looked later, she’d scream, and perhaps never be able to touch herself again. The sight of a dead man she’d once shared a meal with and lent books to could be enough to spoil arousal for the rest of her life. No more throat tugging, forever necklace fiddling.

His breathing, it had elevated, picked up pace. He was choking on it, wringing the rope in time with his sucks. He stepped down from the chair, walked closer to the window. He could see better here, could see her fingers entering herself - the way she grasped her thigh with her left hand for leverage, the way her hips rolled in return with her right hand, in and out. He held up his own right hand, the one holding the looped end of his rope, and wished instead it was his fingers sinking into Belle French, that the loop was her cunt, that the scratch was her nails as he rubbed her.

He gasped. This sudden longing, it was filling him, and his breath stopped altogether. He couldn’t possibly take another breath, his lungs were too busy filling up with _feeling_ , and by God if it wasn’t good!

Maybe he should choose a different rafter. Further back, where she couldn’t see. He’d wait until she was spent and asleep. He’d carry on, he’d carry on, he _needed_ to carry on, he couldn’t take the empty anymore. Not one more morning of nothing and not tasting breakfast, not one more conversation where his voice sounded like white noise, not one more day and night that blended together into nothing absolutely nothing everyday nothing. He needed to commit, needed to carry on, to finish, so the nothing could finally be over.

But. If it was going to end anyway, it may as well end with this. With the one thing that’d made his breath lose and return again. He grabbed his chest, feeling (feeling!) the way his lungs expanded, that return of breath, that relief. Heavy puffs now, in and out, just like her fingers where she pleasured herself. Pleasure, it would be good to feel it. The swell of his cock from the excitement of watching her, having found her at all, ah, so good! Yes, he could end it all with pleasure, a perfect way to cap the nothing. What did it matter if he was just going to die, anyway?

He could work in rhythm with her. Pump his cock to the shake of her breasts. To the expansion of her ribs, to her hand rubbing her clitoris. To the opening and closing of her mouth, the words he couldn’t tell she was speaking any better than whatever word he’d uttered earlier. Was she reciting a frenzy to an imaginary lover, _fuck me fuck me fuck me?_ Was she panting words to a favorite filthy line of poetry, _stray lower, stray lower, where the pleasant fountains lie?_ Or something from the book she’d lent him, was she saying whatever her embarrassed smiles couldn’t? Was she, was she -

“Masturbating,” he said, his head falling to the glass, “Belle’s masturbating.” It felt good just to say it, say what he was seeing. Made his breath catch again, fill up again. His cock was swollen to straining and the sight of her and her imaginary phrases were going to have him coming before he ever even touched himself. He mouthed the glass in front of him with the thought, the glass tasting cool and a poor imitation of the salt and warmth he craved, but it was something. Something, better than nothing.

Maybe. Maybe he could wait a day. Maybe he could go home, and have one more sleep, one more before he had his good swing. A night to writhe the way Belle was, a night to touch himself and prolong this _feeling_ that had overcome him, a night to touch, to pant, to masturbate. One more day wouldn’t hurt any more than all the others had, not if it was only one.

He stepped back from the glass. His hands shook terribly, clenched too tight, and the scratch of the rope dug rough into his palms. That felt good, too, in its own way. The bite of the rope, meant for his neck, busy stuck in his palms. He looked at it, his noose in his grip and not where it should be. It was supposed to be suspended by now, working its way over his hair, his head, his neck. Pulled tight, it was supposed to lead him away from here, but Belle had already done that. Pale Belle upon her dark bed, her gentle rhythm in the night. Her own gentle swinging, the back and forth of her hand inside herself.

The storm outside curdled, and he blinked himself back into the room, the clocktower. The chair was still waiting, he reasoned; still eager for his feet to climb upon it, then kick it over. The rope was awaiting his tension, limp and waiting to grow rigid and taut. He sighed, and nodded. Took one last glance up.

Through the window, he saw her.

Saw her, seeing him.

His eyes bulged and his throat clenched at the same time. She was up, pale figure, away from her dark bed. Her hands were on the window, white stars against the panes, all her fingers spread, no longer inside herself, and her mouth now in a different o entirely. Her breasts were still swinging, swinging because her stars had turned into fists pounding her window, and she was shouting, shouting something he still couldn’t make out.

He choked again, blinked again, looked down at the obvious noose in his hands. His fingers grew feeble, failing, and he dropped the rope.

He turned and fled. Down to the arching door of the clocktower, down the stairs, fuck, where had he parked again? He’d allowed himself a long walk in the rain before coming up here, not wanting his car to be an obvious giveaway that someone was in the clocktower. Couldn’t be parked right out front, no, and he didn’t bother taking note of where he’d left it, because he didn’t think notes would be needed anymore. Car, car, where was it? Its black hood was somewhere here, left or right, up the street or down?

He stood stupid in the rain, hands shaking and head growing wet. Shoulders too, the rain making its way down to his shaking fingers, a tremble he couldn’t control.

“Gold!”

The library doors banged as she exited and made her sprint towards him. And he couldn’t move. Standing, standing, so stupid in front of the clocktower, leg killing him from his mad dash down the stairs. He’d abandoned his cane and had nothing to lean on, and God did he need something to lean on.

Belle French, naked woman in front of him, terrifyingly beautiful. Pale, pale against the black of the road, the buildings, the storm, Belle French. She was shivering, she was yelling, and maybe he was shivering and yelling too. Her flesh was pebbled, goosebumps all over, her nipples a beautiful dark pink against the rest of her pale, and he licked his lips and cursed himself for appreciating her beauty in the dark and the rain and the fear on her face. Her ribs were easier to look at, or her hips, naval, or the curves that led to where her hands had been. No, no, none of it was safe at all, not really, but at least he wasn’t looking at her eyes, frightened blue things getting closer.

She approached him, and he took his jacket off without thinking.

“Gold,” she said, stepping close, and he draped his jacket around her shoulders.

“Get back inside,” he said. “You’ll catch your death like that.”

“Death,” she said, eyebrows together, mouth in a frown. “I think I just caught yours.”

“Never mind that,” he said, not looking at her face, staring at the shoulder pads of his jacket where they hung limp from her small frame. God, she was such a small thing!

“You weren’t meant to see me,” he said.

“But I did. I saw you.”

And I saw you, he thought, when I wasn’t meant to.

May I pardon your crime for mine?

Her breathing was ragged, fast. How mad had her own dash been? She was grasping the edges of his jacket, pulling it tighter around herself, but she was also stepping closer, closer, and closer still when he tried to stumble back. Her eyes were blinking against the rain, against strands of wet hair that now streaked her face. He could feel his own streaks, the howl of the wind pushing them around awkwardly, into his eyes and mouth the same way it was pushing her hair into hers.

It was so dark out here. The pale of her tiny fingers made small spiders against his jacket, thin lines of white against his black lapels. His jacket would be soaking soon, and of no use to her. Soggy wet thing would soon weigh her down to the street. He squeezed her arms - wait, was he holding her? - and set his face into a plea for her to return inside.

“I saw you,” she said again. “I know I’m … I’m nothing to you, I’m not important, or a part of anything you belong to, I don’t know you. I’m a nobody to ask this, I know it’s not my place, but please, _please_ , don’t. Please don’t. Don’t do … what you were doing. Is that what you were doing? Were you - ?”

He closed his eyes, squeezed her arms again. She was real, she was here, asking him such a thing. Belle French.

He opened his eyes, and nodded.

Her mouth was trembling, red, wet, and her brows furrowed so deep. She nodded in return, and reached a hand for his chest, one and then the other, til her palms rest against his wet shirt, buttons creaking under her nails.

“Don’t hang yourself, please don’t, please - ” she said. Her arms pushed farther forward, out of his jacket and up his chest, tentative and slow, until her hands were at his nape, his hair. He had to grip those sagging shoulder pads to keep his jacket from falling off of her.

“I care about you, please. I know … saying that should come after, I don’t know, dinner, or drinks, or a movie, or anything, something. But. You need to know, I don’t want you gone. I don’t.”

Her teeth chattered, she closed her eyes, and spoke again.

“Instead of a rope, please, my hands, maybe? My arms around you? To hold you? Instead of a rope to hang you?”

He blinked rapidly, tried to open his mouth to speak. The feeling of her hands against his neck, his skin, so cold and shaking, but he felt her, God, he _felt_.

“I saw you,” he confessed.

“Saw me?”

“Touching yourself. It. It made me stop.”

She blinked rapidly now, and red started to bloom across her face in understanding, or shame, perhaps, anger, maybe, and he wanted to slash himself! Crush himself, pulverize, _damn him!_ Who was he to have watched her? Pervert, filth, worthless, depraved fuck!

“Good,” she said. “Good. I’m glad you saw me. I’m glad it made you stop.”

He laughed, a disbelieving thing, sound lost somewhere in the storm, but she smiled. That embarrassed one, the one he liked so much.

“You’re not nothing,” he said, reaching up for one of the hands that held his nape, small cold thing, so tiny in his large hand.

He spread his thumb across her palm and felt a sob in his throat. “You’re not nothing,” he said again.

Her fingers gripped his, tight, and her other hand gripped his hair. Her hand moved forward to his throat, tugging, _ah_ , it felt so good, so, so good.

He looked down at her, finally looked at her, and oh how pretty she was in the rain. Her eyes such a blue, good God. Her throat, its gentle pulse in the same spot where she tugged him, where she’d been tugging herself earlier. He swallowed, and felt her thumb follow the movement.

He whimpered, he couldn’t help himself, and looked down. Her feet, poor bare things, crowded so close to his shoes, no warmth to give her.

“Get back inside,” he urged again. “You’ve got … you’ve got no shoes on.”

She looked down, sudden and like she’d only just noticed her bare feet herself. The road must have bit her, stung her feet in her haste to get to him. Were there cuts, was she bleeding? Her flesh must be colder than the hand he held, the hand around his neck.

“Come up,” she said. “Come with me. Please.”

“To your apartment?”

“Yes,” she said.

Her words, simple request, started slow in his gut and moved up to his chest, out to his groin, his legs, his arms, his throat where she held him, his hand where he held hers. His other hand, it had somehow found its way around her waist. Her words filled and filled and filled him up, and he’d never felt so warm before, he’d never _felt_ so much before, and by God if it wasn’t good!

“Yes,” he said, repeating her word, tasting it in that new warmth of his mouth. But he’d inadvertently accepted her invitation, hadn’t he? He couldn’t say no now, not with the way she was looking at him, not with the way the rain or tears or something now fell from her eyes. Her hand gripped him, tugged, and he tugged in return.

“Yes,” he said again, and she smiled.


End file.
